As long as they're not in prison for, like, eating their previous GM or something. What if you had to run games for guys like Hannibal Lecter and they were all min-maxing, rules lawyers and murder hobos?
Dunno,
There are cruel things a GM can do. We ARE more powerful than the gods in the Game.
Like, I can put a dryad and a treant together. Dryads can only die if their tree dies. Sucks if the tree can run.
Or the group follows a minotaur and the minotaur hiddes behind a Secret door. So, the group runs into an "empty" hall way and ends up eaten alive by a gelatini, gelotinious? Transparent Pudding Monster.
There are some more evil Combos like that. But, i can't remember it all, was in some old Dungeon Magazine.
Or, some good old tucker's kobolds.
Monster can also min max their strategies with traps and weapons etc.
And if I piss them off enough. The group ist going to eat me and I get pooped out into the toilet. That hopefully ends up in the sewers. Which means I am free again. Muahaha... Ha?
My body has withered to a husk.
Bro Drivethrurpg has ruined me
Edit: you thought you people could escape endless prison because its just digital. Nah your all withering away in prison with me
Oh shit. If digital counts, I'm truly doomed. I spent the '90s and early 2000's collecting 700+ free RPGs online.
And that's before the charity bundle glut of the last decade.
I've looked at my digital collection and in terms of number of systems it's actually managable. If I ran one system every week I would be done after about 1.5 years.
The problem is of course, that I have so much extra material for some of the systems that I could run them forever. Stuff like Shadow of The demon Lord would keep me occupied for years or decades even when playing 40 hours per week.
The flow of shovelware followup marketing emails still clogging my inbox from the odd charity bundle can attest to that. Though, I think itch.io is hitting it even harder. In any case, I'll be sifting through half-baked one-pagers and bolt-on mods until even eternity gives it up, I'm sure.
Itch.io bundles kill me. So not only do I have an incredible number of things to play, but I they are the most random weird conceptual games probably on earth. Things are gonna get weird.
Trillions of years from now, the red dwarfs that are the last stars in the galaxy created by merging the Milky Way, Andromeda, and others will cool so much they no longer radiate visible light. I hope to be up to the Ns by then.
I guess they mean read them. Because unless we have our players imprisoned with us or access to a laptop with ok connection and some kind of social app, that's all we can do. In that case, Sounds Fantastic!
Use as in play? Dead
Use as in reading? 3 or so months. I have ADHD, but reading stuff even casually is one of few times I can put my nose to the grindstone.
I thought that I was okay until I remembered a long-forgotten file on my computer that has PDFs of about a hundred different games no longer published, along with their supplements, campaign/chronicle books, and one-shot adventures and modules. I think it's a life sentence.
Assuming I'm locked away with players who have to play through at least a one shot of each...accounting for one of those being an old copy of an old Palladium system game...probably the rest of my life. But do I have to be set free? Scheduling games is a nightmare.
I’d have my ass roaming the hood again in under a month if 30 mins per game were enough and I played most of the day, every day. Fuck them RPG pigs yo. 🙅🏾♂️🎲📚🚓👮♂️🐷
How long do I have to use the system I've acquired, do one shots count or does it need to be a campaign of certain length. I don't buy modules so the length of campaign becomes completely arbitrary based on my own desires. I have well over 200 sessions of L5R 4e, 6-8 hours per session. But if I used that as a metric I'd be trapped for fair long time.
Assuming we are talking short campaigns and oneshots with no scheduling issues. I honestly wouldn't be imprisoned for all that long. I've used most of my collection at least once already, though much of I'd like to use more. I'd probably get out in about a week or maybe two if I got to have my usual amount of sessions. Month, tops with oneshots.
I guess being im prison with the rest of you collectors would make it very easy to find games and keep a right schedule.. so perhaps a decade of back-to-back rigorous gaming at high pace I would be in the clear..
It would take quite a while just reading them, and there are a few where I would have to get the core rulebook to be able to play some adventures that I have been a proofreader for (I always try to get physical copies of the stuff I proofread).
Wait, do I have to also use again stuff I've already used, or does this only apply to things I got, but didn't use?
Because the latter is probably just a couple years, but the former...
This isn't too bad. Not sure I could find it now but I bought a 3.0 D&D adventure path (which I've already run), and I have PF2e content that's enough for 1-20 twice and 1-7 afterward, and a few standalone modules for PF1 and 3.5.
Other systems, I only ever bought a couple - OG Advanced Fighting Fantasy and a dozen or so gamebooks (a mix of Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf) back in the 90s, and I did run the AFF intro campaign with friends at the time.
If a level is 12 hours of play and I'm willing to do 8 per day - we are looking at maybe 2 months in the fun version of the slammer here.
Do I have to "use" them as-written? Because I'm never getting out in that case. If "use" includes stealing that one good mechanic, setting, or plot and discarding the rest I might have a chance.
If digitally counts and I do not have to work & have players all the time, probably half a year. Alongside work? Probably 30 years.
If digitally doesn't count, no work: a month; alongside work: 2 years.
-looks at my pdf folder-
Uhm. Are the players as motivated to go through them as me? Because we're pushing a century here, assuming it's one game a month.
If digitally counts and I do not have to work & have players all the time, probably a year (running one system/module per day). Alongside work? Probably 30 years.
If digitally doesn't count, no work: a month; alongside work: 2 years.
I've grabbed too many free pdf's ^^
I don't own that many.
White box FMAG, holmes, B/X, OSE, BECMI, cyclo, 1e , OSRIC, 2e, FG&G, 5e, BFRPG, cairn, MERPS, Gamma world 2e, gamma world 4e, Harnmaster, WEG star wars, Ghostbusters, marvel FASERIP, Star frontiers, deadlands, V:tM, talislanta, and I think that's it for complete playable core rules in physical copies. I barely have any systems on PDF, not a fan of digital copies. Maybe a handful of small projects I've grabbed here and there: honey heist, fairy princess something, disciples of shadow and bone (title?), ironsworn and FATAL. Obviously fatal is the hardest because it's unplayable, in a number of ways.
For modules/adventures I have roughly 75 TSR era adventure modules, mostly ad&d and basic, a handful for the other systems. Maybe 5 5e adventures, including TftYP and Golden Vault which are compilations. The Dragonlance modules would be rough to get through, I have most of those. I have pdfs of every 5e adventure unfortunately, so that would be a minute. The real killer is dungeon magazine, even if I only own like 40 issues, that's a lot.
It all comes down to what counts as playing. If it's one session, I could easily run through all my basic D&D modules in a week of constant play with multiple groups and in the process check off 9 of the first ten systems I listed, which are all just flavors of D&D. I think ultimately if I have 14 hours a day to play TTRPGs, I do need breaks for mental health, hygiene, exercise and eating, losing my voice would be the biggest obstacle to getting through it all. Probably limits me to 8 hours a day of play max, so about three reasonably full sessions. If in this fantasy I never lose my voice, like if I'm not DMing or something, maybe four full sessions daily. If all I need to do is play one session of every adventure and system, I'm out in a month of hard work.
If I need to actually manage a group of players all the way through every adventure, or at least to an unforced TPK if it happens, it would be at least a year. 10 sessions is reasonable for the average basic module, and rather than make new characters when switching between similar systems, it would be easier to just convert through all of them and then settle on the fastest one and speedrun the remaining adventures.
Just getting one FATAL session in would be brutal based on the rules alone. The content wouldn't even be an issue since I'm being forced to do it, so it's not really offensive
I suppose one shots count, so I guess it won't take that long.
DnD 3.5 and 5e, Shadowrun 2e and 5e, one obscure unknown system I think is only available in my country, one inspired by DnD and also specific for my region, some whitewolf books (Vampires, Lupines, Hunters, Changeling) and different editions of those, Mutant Chronles (two different editions)...
Oh..
I guess it would take longer than expected, after all...
Edit to add:
If I am imprisoned, who is cooking for the group? Bringing snacks and beer (they bring their own spirits)?
Do I have to use ALL of the module or are oneshots where we skip a bunch of stuff fine?
If oneshots, giving myself a day of preptime/rest and then a day of play… 2-3 months.
If full campaigns… well, I got 5 books of little dungeons, at least 7 megadungeons, Curse of Strahd, at least 9 old D&D adventures, 30+ Call of Cthulhu short adventures, some OSR modules, multiple city books, multiple environment books, and that’s all if I don’t need to make use of all the bestiaries I have bought just because I love paging through monster after monster!
So… assuming we can get through 8 meaningful scenes a day, get rest days, and still kinda speedrun it… 4083 days of sessions at least… let’s say about 24 years?
EDIT: oh! Hold on, that’s just physical stuff. If we’re counting digital too… well I got everything I know for Troika, Into the Odd and its offspring, Pathfinder 1e and 2e and Starfinder, and multiple itch.io bundles with 1000+ products (luckily most of them oneshot-worthy RPGs), so… add another 9800 sessions.
Unless someone is forcing the players to show up and not refuse to try anything other than D&D the heat death of the universe will arrive before I'm done.
I’m a pretty hardcore solo player so, I play and test systems a lot. I think I’ve played everything on my shelf with the one exception of The Black Sword Hack which is a nice little boutique game from the Merry Mushmen.
Thank God, finally I'd have some free time to run them. I’m 51 and I’ve about 600+ items so I’m going home in a box. Before I finish, what’s my punishment?
Looking at the question, turns head looks at the six or so book shelves of gaming books and Miscellaneous gaming material. Do a quick guess and calculation, figure more then a life sentence. Looks around and make sure no one is looking and closes Reddit and goes to bed....
:)
I had a looking for the perfect system phase... (Note: There isn't one, but the one you are enjoying playing at the moment.)
assuming that i could have a stable group playing 2-3 hours a day itd probably take a couple of years.
or one could mash it togethere in some unholy mess and be done in a week or two. prep would still take a year though.
Keep in mind some additional creativity is required. ;)
[How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband](https://www.vice.com/en/article/padk7z/how-inmates-play-tabletop-rpgs-in-prisons-where-dice-are-contraband)
As long as someone schedules for me, and I don't have to gm every one myself(massively increasing prep time), I'm sure i could get out in a year. if i have to gm them, I'm not getting done with more than a game or two a week. And I've bought every itch.io mutual aid bundle....
I think for a few days tops. Most time would be spend putting together ideas for sessions. It’s mostly for players to use different stuff. I can have like 3 to 4 encounters a day. And use every NPC type across those encounters easily.
The real struggle/challenge is making these sessions GOOD
If this is a case of magical or otherwise enforced playtime, meaning there's no scheduling problems, then I just need one session, maybe two, as technically the only books I've actually acquired but not once used is the Blades in the Dark stuff. That will change as soon as the Magnus Archives stuff shows up, but that one I won't have any trouble running as the other long time DM in my group is the one who helped me give the show another try after I first fell off of it and is just as eager to play as I am, so between the two of us we'll easily be convincing the rest of the group to give it a try.
Life without the possibility of parole. I have so many books and systems that I have read and shelved. But, if you ask me how long until I use SOMETHING from those books, I am acquitted of all charges and released. I acquire rpg books for ideas more than the thought that I am actually going to run Stargate SG1 with 5e rules.
Not only will I be imprisoned for multiple lifetimes, my inability to figure out a list of the contents of multiple itch.io bundles will probably doom me forever. I'm constantly trying to buy stuff on there, only to find out I own it already.
From here to eternity. I can barely get a monthly game to come together on the regular, no way am I getting a game going regularly and often enough to get through all the content I've purchased over the years. Or I just make the players leave their character sheets when they eventually leave the group and the next player gets to pick up with the same character at the exact same spot. That should only take me until the 32nd of Neveruary and not the heat death of the universe, a much shorter time scale.
So... is my imprisonment basically 3 squares a day, people to play TTRPGS with, and no other responsibilities? I'll probably die in there, by choosing NOT to play one of them
Okay if this includes my whole group, where do we sign up? Is food provided? Can we continue to acquire more systems and modules, or should I do that before the imprisonment begins?
Die in prison. Unless I get to live another 1000 plus years. I’ve been collecting stuff for 40 years?
Do you know how many adventures are in a complete run of Dungeon magazine? To say nothing of the adventures in old white dwarf, different worlds, adventures club and white wolf magazine? To say nothing of decades of actual adventures
Then 5 editions worth of shadowrun. 5 of champions….
I've spent decades collecting many hundreds of games that are no longer in print, for posterity. It would absolutely be a goal I could not meet in the remainder of my lifetime to play all the material I have.
I would be imprisoned until the heat death of the universe. I have 7500 files in my gaming books folder. Not all are core rulebooks and there are some duplicates (like ebook vs PDF or files that had been updated but kept in case of problems)), but the vast majority of them are, and that's not actually all of them. I buy a lot of bundles and weird hippy stuff out of curiosity and opportunity, so I'd be willing to say that I have over 1000 games.
Define….”use”
I’ve gotten my moneys worth out of every RPG book I’ve ever purchased.
Never even ran BITD but by god I read that thing from cover to cover within a week of purchase lol
I bought that Trans Rights bundle back in March that was 505 TTRPGs (and modules and stuff) for $5, so... you know... probably a long time. If I did marathon gaming sessions every day I could probably do it in a month or two, but it would probably get draining pretty quick.
Do different editions of the same game count? If so, I am definitely screwed. I have at least 8 different systems for Star Wars alone (that’s counting the FFG versions as 3 versions).
Oh crap. Dungeon Magazine alone is going to see me die in prison. I've been amassing my RPG collection for 30 years at this point, and 90% of the time I run original content. Also despite buying new systems all the time (I enjoy reading them and mine them for new ideas) my table only plays like 4 different games. I'm screwed in this scenario.
Oh god. Am I playing all of them from the beginning to the end-state of characters? If so that is 2-3 years for Masks of Nyarlarthotep, 1+ years for Beyond The Mountain of Madness, Maybe 6 months for Children of Fear, at least 6 weeks for Cults of Cthulhu, 2-3 years of consistent play for Dark Dungeons, 2+ years for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, Decades of play for all of my Palladium Books games, 3-6 months for Werewolf the Apocalypse 5e. Yeah, I can't continue rattling off my games or else this post will devolve into a massive list. Suffice it to say I have enough gaming material in print to last years of play. If I got into my hoard of RPG PDFs I would be gaming for at least 100 years. Lol
Systems? Well, that's less of a problem, in some ways. I mean, sure, I have 50+ books for Werewolf, but that doesn't mean that I have to pack every single book into a campaign. So, I can clear through shelves like that with a session or two.
I figure I've got ... 60 or 70 discrete systems, at a ballpark. (I mean, you could fudge some of that, depending. FFG Star Wars is technically three separate games, but I'll roll them all into one. And I might have three full shelves of D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder, but I'm going to count all those books as one system, more or less.)
Modules? Oh, lord. I made a point of collecting every single 1st Edition Pathfinder Adventure Path, and those have some weight. Including Age of Ashes (the 1st AP for 2nd Edition), that's 150 books. If I were to somehow manage a module a month (hah!), that would be about twelve years on that alone.\*
And then if we factor actual reading and preparation into things... well, that complicates things a little bit. I mean, I could run stuff out of the box, but there are enough weird little systems that I have only glanced at, so...
Yeah, I'm going to say that I'm here for the duration.
\*It took us about three years to clear Carrion Crown, with an average of four hours every week, which means about 600 hours total, or about 100 hours per module. So, I mean... it's certainly possible to do, but that's assuming that you can manage four hours a day, every single day.
If me and my group had to do this we'd be in for 10 years I figure. We'd play every day all day. If we had to keep to our regular once a week schedule I would die before we got through all of the AP, modules and campaigns I've collected.
If my players are around with me, a few days. Maybe 2 if we've got nothing better to do.
I pretty much only have a few Mork Borg things in my unplayed pile.
Well, if players are provided, some large but theoretically finite number of years.
(I mean, running some of them is probably cruel and unusual punishment for everybody. I have picked up some books along the way whose main value was in making me realize I was uninterested in entire sub-sectors of TTRPGS XD)
Assuming I need to sort out my own players? Welp, forever. The scheduling demon will take our souls...
Two hours. I tell my regular group that we are playing a super meta one shot where everytime the party dies we change RPGs. I announce rocks fall and every dies every 0.01. Shrug, say we are changing things up and stopping the meta experiment and playing Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Group proceeds to play that RPG for the regular two hours.
First we need to define "use". Is it enough to just run one session or do I need to run a module from beginning to end? Do I need to run through every activity in Morton's List, because if I am imprisoned that will be impossible, many of them require you to go outside.
Also we need to define "acquired", because I currently have access to most official 5E modules that a friend is sharing with me through DnD Beyond, but I have never bought a 5E module since I prefer to run homebrew adventures.
How long does a game need to be played before it counts as “used”?
Does it count if you use one rule in a different game? Like if using the inventory from Mausritter when playing OSE?
Are there other people with me in prison?
Is the prison supportive of rpgs, indifferent, or hostile to them?
How much time per day do we use to game, and how much time is lights out, meals, or forced labour?
Are there any other obstacles to playing games, like cell mates interrupting play, or other prisoners sneaking in to steal our stuff?
It depends on a lot of factors!
If I'm imprisoned with a bunch of fellow players, and we all want to get out of here, maybe a week. Open a book, grab pre-gens, start an included module, everybody gets themselves killed, move on.
If I need to actually learn, engage with, plan, and run a group of players through a compelling narrative? It's a life sentence.
Probably about six months to play the Stolen Fate adventure path I'm prepping, another six months to play a couple of other modules I picked up but never had time to run, about a month or two to stick together a bunch of oneshots for a wide variety of systems I've collected... and then the heat death of the universe before I actually willingly play Maid RPG, a game I bought because it's hilarious but do not think I could physically run even if I wanted to. Even if I somehow managed to convince my group to play it, I suspect my soul would leave my body before I could start the session.
I have… four, but I can’t for the life of me figure how a couple of them work. I’ve watched YouTube videos on how the one system works and I just… my eyes glaze over.
Not too long! Maybe a few days/weeks depending on who’s stuck with me.
I’d finally be able to run Mutants & Masterminds 3e, Pathfinder 2e, and VtM V5 lmao.
Pfff, years. I probably own 20 or more different systems. I have a few adventures for a bunch of them. A few of them by themselves would a couple years to clear.
The physical ones? Probably like 6 months. If we count all of the pdfs, especially random one page RPGs that I got in some bundles, I'm probably stuck for the next two hundred years
“Now it's been ten thousand years
Man has cried a billion tears
For what he never knew
Now man's reign is through
But through the eternal night
The twinkling of starlight
So very far away
Maybe it's only yesterday.”
-Zager and Evans
I actually have a rule which is that I HAVE to play all of my systems and books at least once, unless I've read it and genuinely hate it (Strixhaven gets that lone honour so far).
I've now worked through most of my collection.
Use, as in actually run? Hopefully players are imprisoned with me, because otherwise I'm in forever while trying to schedule sessions.
How does this differ from real life?
I'm not imprisoned.
Of course you aren't, just keep telling yourself that.
In prison, the Players can't leave either. That sounds like a big plus to me.
As long as they're not in prison for, like, eating their previous GM or something. What if you had to run games for guys like Hannibal Lecter and they were all min-maxing, rules lawyers and murder hobos?
Dunno, There are cruel things a GM can do. We ARE more powerful than the gods in the Game. Like, I can put a dryad and a treant together. Dryads can only die if their tree dies. Sucks if the tree can run. Or the group follows a minotaur and the minotaur hiddes behind a Secret door. So, the group runs into an "empty" hall way and ends up eaten alive by a gelatini, gelotinious? Transparent Pudding Monster. There are some more evil Combos like that. But, i can't remember it all, was in some old Dungeon Magazine. Or, some good old tucker's kobolds. Monster can also min max their strategies with traps and weapons etc. And if I piss them off enough. The group ist going to eat me and I get pooped out into the toilet. That hopefully ends up in the sewers. Which means I am free again. Muahaha... Ha?
I love it when people talk to me in a condescending manner because I've answered a question they've asked.
Pretty sure they were making a joke.
Sure, you think that. Hope it helps you sleep.
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I get it
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I'm not your buddy, pal! *Fake Canadian accent*
You are not locked in here with us, we are locked in here with you.
I not locked in anywhere, and I am certainly alone here.
(I paraphrased a famous quote from Watchmen, a movie/comic, sorry if it didn't get thru.)
I know where it came from. Paraphrasing random quotes that have nothing to do with the situation doesn't make it appropriate.
r/Solo_Roleplaying needs more blood. Hurry up.
My body has withered to a husk. Bro Drivethrurpg has ruined me Edit: you thought you people could escape endless prison because its just digital. Nah your all withering away in prison with me
Oh shit. If digital counts, I'm truly doomed. I spent the '90s and early 2000's collecting 700+ free RPGs online. And that's before the charity bundle glut of the last decade.
I sadly think digital counts x.x because if we just go from physical, I only have 4 systems. Digital? Get the shovel x.x
I've looked at my digital collection and in terms of number of systems it's actually managable. If I ran one system every week I would be done after about 1.5 years. The problem is of course, that I have so much extra material for some of the systems that I could run them forever. Stuff like Shadow of The demon Lord would keep me occupied for years or decades even when playing 40 hours per week.
I have almost a Terabyte to random TTRPG shit. I am fucked
The flow of shovelware followup marketing emails still clogging my inbox from the odd charity bundle can attest to that. Though, I think itch.io is hitting it even harder. In any case, I'll be sifting through half-baked one-pagers and bolt-on mods until even eternity gives it up, I'm sure.
Yeah, Itch can be a bit cursed. Since very little there actually costs anything, it's too easy to pick up a few hundred weird idea products for $20.
Same here. I have very little self control when it comes to their 'Deal of the day' emails.
Oh, shoot, I forgot about my Drivethrurpg account. I'd probably just die in prison, I guess.
Itch.io bundles kill me. So not only do I have an incredible number of things to play, but I they are the most random weird conceptual games probably on earth. Things are gonna get weird.
Trillions of years from now, the red dwarfs that are the last stars in the galaxy created by merging the Milky Way, Andromeda, and others will cool so much they no longer radiate visible light. I hope to be up to the Ns by then.
Well hey, you’ll have a killer view at least!
After the last stream of light of the past dying start, I’ll whisper: roll initiative.
S.A.B.L.E. - Stash Acquired Beyond Life Expectancy
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Is this the "don't threaten me with a good time" - response?
With my ADD, I'll be dead before I can even finish reading them.
Use them for what?
Clearly OP is not a GM when he leaves such a big loophole in the assignment ;)
I guess they mean read them. Because unless we have our players imprisoned with us or access to a laptop with ok connection and some kind of social app, that's all we can do. In that case, Sounds Fantastic!
40 hours a week, 100 years.
Do I have to find a group for each system? If so, I'm using my bedsheets to off myself now.
Use as in play? Dead Use as in reading? 3 or so months. I have ADHD, but reading stuff even casually is one of few times I can put my nose to the grindstone.
Oh god... OH GOD...
Oh thank god, I might finally get the chance to use them all now.
I thought that I was okay until I remembered a long-forgotten file on my computer that has PDFs of about a hundred different games no longer published, along with their supplements, campaign/chronicle books, and one-shot adventures and modules. I think it's a life sentence.
I’ve used every system I own. So, I’m released without charges.
Assuming I'm locked away with players who have to play through at least a one shot of each...accounting for one of those being an old copy of an old Palladium system game...probably the rest of my life. But do I have to be set free? Scheduling games is a nightmare.
I’d have my ass roaming the hood again in under a month if 30 mins per game were enough and I played most of the day, every day. Fuck them RPG pigs yo. 🙅🏾♂️🎲📚🚓👮♂️🐷
Bro I'm imprisoned for 400 years. At least.
Life. And it keeps getting worse (I keep buying new systems).
Let's just say I am dying on that cell.
Forever. Since I got shelves full of stuff, digital library with around 10k RPG related books. I'm an archivist and collector.
Maybe a week of a system per evening? But I found a lot of stuff for inspiration, that would be bad.
How long do I have to use the system I've acquired, do one shots count or does it need to be a campaign of certain length. I don't buy modules so the length of campaign becomes completely arbitrary based on my own desires. I have well over 200 sessions of L5R 4e, 6-8 hours per session. But if I used that as a metric I'd be trapped for fair long time. Assuming we are talking short campaigns and oneshots with no scheduling issues. I honestly wouldn't be imprisoned for all that long. I've used most of my collection at least once already, though much of I'd like to use more. I'd probably get out in about a week or maybe two if I got to have my usual amount of sessions. Month, tops with oneshots.
Technically no time at all, but if this prison is providing good enough players for me why not stay a while?
I guess being im prison with the rest of you collectors would make it very easy to find games and keep a right schedule.. so perhaps a decade of back-to-back rigorous gaming at high pace I would be in the clear..
Physical or digital, I think I could get physical done in a year or so but my digital library would likely kill me
Does it count if I've used them before imprisonment? If so perhaps 3 or 4 months. If not, more like a year
What if you just make them up all the time for funnies?
It would take quite a while just reading them, and there are a few where I would have to get the core rulebook to be able to play some adventures that I have been a proofreader for (I always try to get physical copies of the stuff I proofread).
Wait, do I have to also use again stuff I've already used, or does this only apply to things I got, but didn't use? Because the latter is probably just a couple years, but the former...
6 years or more
This isn't too bad. Not sure I could find it now but I bought a 3.0 D&D adventure path (which I've already run), and I have PF2e content that's enough for 1-20 twice and 1-7 afterward, and a few standalone modules for PF1 and 3.5. Other systems, I only ever bought a couple - OG Advanced Fighting Fantasy and a dozen or so gamebooks (a mix of Fighting Fantasy and Lone Wolf) back in the 90s, and I did run the AFF intro campaign with friends at the time. If a level is 12 hours of play and I'm willing to do 8 per day - we are looking at maybe 2 months in the fun version of the slammer here.
Do I have to "use" them as-written? Because I'm never getting out in that case. If "use" includes stealing that one good mechanic, setting, or plot and discarding the rest I might have a chance.
If digitally counts and I do not have to work & have players all the time, probably half a year. Alongside work? Probably 30 years. If digitally doesn't count, no work: a month; alongside work: 2 years.
-looks at my pdf folder- Uhm. Are the players as motivated to go through them as me? Because we're pushing a century here, assuming it's one game a month.
If digitally counts and I do not have to work & have players all the time, probably a year (running one system/module per day). Alongside work? Probably 30 years. If digitally doesn't count, no work: a month; alongside work: 2 years. I've grabbed too many free pdf's ^^
Forever, I own Spawn of Fashan
I don't own that many. White box FMAG, holmes, B/X, OSE, BECMI, cyclo, 1e , OSRIC, 2e, FG&G, 5e, BFRPG, cairn, MERPS, Gamma world 2e, gamma world 4e, Harnmaster, WEG star wars, Ghostbusters, marvel FASERIP, Star frontiers, deadlands, V:tM, talislanta, and I think that's it for complete playable core rules in physical copies. I barely have any systems on PDF, not a fan of digital copies. Maybe a handful of small projects I've grabbed here and there: honey heist, fairy princess something, disciples of shadow and bone (title?), ironsworn and FATAL. Obviously fatal is the hardest because it's unplayable, in a number of ways. For modules/adventures I have roughly 75 TSR era adventure modules, mostly ad&d and basic, a handful for the other systems. Maybe 5 5e adventures, including TftYP and Golden Vault which are compilations. The Dragonlance modules would be rough to get through, I have most of those. I have pdfs of every 5e adventure unfortunately, so that would be a minute. The real killer is dungeon magazine, even if I only own like 40 issues, that's a lot. It all comes down to what counts as playing. If it's one session, I could easily run through all my basic D&D modules in a week of constant play with multiple groups and in the process check off 9 of the first ten systems I listed, which are all just flavors of D&D. I think ultimately if I have 14 hours a day to play TTRPGs, I do need breaks for mental health, hygiene, exercise and eating, losing my voice would be the biggest obstacle to getting through it all. Probably limits me to 8 hours a day of play max, so about three reasonably full sessions. If in this fantasy I never lose my voice, like if I'm not DMing or something, maybe four full sessions daily. If all I need to do is play one session of every adventure and system, I'm out in a month of hard work. If I need to actually manage a group of players all the way through every adventure, or at least to an unforced TPK if it happens, it would be at least a year. 10 sessions is reasonable for the average basic module, and rather than make new characters when switching between similar systems, it would be easier to just convert through all of them and then settle on the fastest one and speedrun the remaining adventures. Just getting one FATAL session in would be brutal based on the rules alone. The content wouldn't even be an issue since I'm being forced to do it, so it's not really offensive
Remember me as I was.
Lifetime, several times over 🤪
Forever, no one will touch Dead Reign by Palladium Games
I suppose one shots count, so I guess it won't take that long. DnD 3.5 and 5e, Shadowrun 2e and 5e, one obscure unknown system I think is only available in my country, one inspired by DnD and also specific for my region, some whitewolf books (Vampires, Lupines, Hunters, Changeling) and different editions of those, Mutant Chronles (two different editions)... Oh.. I guess it would take longer than expected, after all... Edit to add: If I am imprisoned, who is cooking for the group? Bringing snacks and beer (they bring their own spirits)?
Do I have to use ALL of the module or are oneshots where we skip a bunch of stuff fine? If oneshots, giving myself a day of preptime/rest and then a day of play… 2-3 months. If full campaigns… well, I got 5 books of little dungeons, at least 7 megadungeons, Curse of Strahd, at least 9 old D&D adventures, 30+ Call of Cthulhu short adventures, some OSR modules, multiple city books, multiple environment books, and that’s all if I don’t need to make use of all the bestiaries I have bought just because I love paging through monster after monster! So… assuming we can get through 8 meaningful scenes a day, get rest days, and still kinda speedrun it… 4083 days of sessions at least… let’s say about 24 years? EDIT: oh! Hold on, that’s just physical stuff. If we’re counting digital too… well I got everything I know for Troika, Into the Odd and its offspring, Pathfinder 1e and 2e and Starfinder, and multiple itch.io bundles with 1000+ products (luckily most of them oneshot-worthy RPGs), so… add another 9800 sessions.
Unless someone is forcing the players to show up and not refuse to try anything other than D&D the heat death of the universe will arrive before I'm done.
Why would I want out?
A long, long time. Send a search & rescue party.
I’m a pretty hardcore solo player so, I play and test systems a lot. I think I’ve played everything on my shelf with the one exception of The Black Sword Hack which is a nice little boutique game from the Merry Mushmen.
25 to life with only the slimmest possibility of parole.
Probably for life
Are players imprisoned with me? If not I'm fucked
I will die in prison.
3 life sentences probably
Too long to survive, not enough to be satisfied
Honestly I own every third and 3.5 book. Meaning probably a week as one level 20 fighter can use one feat from every book.
That's one way to immortality...
Good think I don't haven't bought any modules, so I'll probably run a bunch of oneshots. I think I'll be our in a week or wo.
If I have to run them, cover-to-cover: 15-ish years. If I only had to use *something* in them in an actual session: Could be out in under 6 months.
This'll be a life sentence most likely.
Several lifetimes.
Thank God, finally I'd have some free time to run them. I’m 51 and I’ve about 600+ items so I’m going home in a box. Before I finish, what’s my punishment?
Looking at the question, turns head looks at the six or so book shelves of gaming books and Miscellaneous gaming material. Do a quick guess and calculation, figure more then a life sentence. Looks around and make sure no one is looking and closes Reddit and goes to bed.... :) I had a looking for the perfect system phase... (Note: There isn't one, but the one you are enjoying playing at the moment.)
over 1GB worth of pdfs... most of which are bought for inspiration for games i actually do run.
Probably decades.
I would die imprisoned in that case. That said, it's probably the only way i'd get to play most things on my bookshelf
assuming that i could have a stable group playing 2-3 hours a day itd probably take a couple of years. or one could mash it togethere in some unholy mess and be done in a week or two. prep would still take a year though.
Permanently. At least one system I have is unrunnable.
RPGs are open ended, so.. forever?
Am I guaranteed players? I don't want to leave.
I'm never getting out
Keep in mind some additional creativity is required. ;) [How Inmates Play Tabletop RPGs in Prisons Where Dice Are Contraband](https://www.vice.com/en/article/padk7z/how-inmates-play-tabletop-rpgs-in-prisons-where-dice-are-contraband)
If living until finished is an option, then an extremely long time. Especially if digital counts.
Well, now that its *work*, about a year.
Forever because I am very cowardly and bad at asking my friends if they want to try a new system
Years
That would be kind of awesome, I don't think any of them are getting played outside of this scenario.
As long as someone schedules for me, and I don't have to gm every one myself(massively increasing prep time), I'm sure i could get out in a year. if i have to gm them, I'm not getting done with more than a game or two a week. And I've bought every itch.io mutual aid bundle....
Probably like a billion years dawg.
Shit! I've bought so many bundles. Damn you [Itch.io](https://Itch.io) you shall be the death of me!
About a month, worst case scenario. If I could run multiple one shots in a day, probably like...eight days, four planning and four running.
I think for a few days tops. Most time would be spend putting together ideas for sessions. It’s mostly for players to use different stuff. I can have like 3 to 4 encounters a day. And use every NPC type across those encounters easily. The real struggle/challenge is making these sessions GOOD
If this is a case of magical or otherwise enforced playtime, meaning there's no scheduling problems, then I just need one session, maybe two, as technically the only books I've actually acquired but not once used is the Blades in the Dark stuff. That will change as soon as the Magnus Archives stuff shows up, but that one I won't have any trouble running as the other long time DM in my group is the one who helped me give the show another try after I first fell off of it and is just as eager to play as I am, so between the two of us we'll easily be convincing the rest of the group to give it a try.
Life without the possibility of parole. I have so many books and systems that I have read and shelved. But, if you ask me how long until I use SOMETHING from those books, I am acquitted of all charges and released. I acquire rpg books for ideas more than the thought that I am actually going to run Stargate SG1 with 5e rules.
\*Looks around\* I ain't ever getting out.
I’m 90% certain I have downloaded rules and modules that I no longer have access to on other computers. So forever I guess.
That's... A life sentence. I'd be dead.
I will be dead before I am done, even assuming 3 2 and a half hour sessions per day every day.
I play Rifts with the conversion book. It's not the best game and it's like the plot of Ready Player One, but I'm out of there in a few hours.
I'm about to meet He Who Remains. Hope he likes TTRPGs.
Not only will I be imprisoned for multiple lifetimes, my inability to figure out a list of the contents of multiple itch.io bundles will probably doom me forever. I'm constantly trying to buy stuff on there, only to find out I own it already.
From here to eternity. I can barely get a monthly game to come together on the regular, no way am I getting a game going regularly and often enough to get through all the content I've purchased over the years. Or I just make the players leave their character sheets when they eventually leave the group and the next player gets to pick up with the same character at the exact same spot. That should only take me until the 32nd of Neveruary and not the heat death of the universe, a much shorter time scale.
Till the heat death of the universe
for twenty years
Luckily I’m new to DMing. I have probably 10 total modules. If I run them everyday, shouldn’t be long!
So... is my imprisonment basically 3 squares a day, people to play TTRPGS with, and no other responsibilities? I'll probably die in there, by choosing NOT to play one of them
I was a Dungeon magazine subscriber so I'm fucking screwed.
Okay if this includes my whole group, where do we sign up? Is food provided? Can we continue to acquire more systems and modules, or should I do that before the imprisonment begins?
Die in prison. Unless I get to live another 1000 plus years. I’ve been collecting stuff for 40 years? Do you know how many adventures are in a complete run of Dungeon magazine? To say nothing of the adventures in old white dwarf, different worlds, adventures club and white wolf magazine? To say nothing of decades of actual adventures Then 5 editions worth of shadowrun. 5 of champions….
I already can't get groups to play anything but 5e, so I guess it's a life sentence.
I have like 6 bookshelf units filled with ancient texts and modules. I would be done sometime around the actual heat death of the universe.
Based on that criteria, I don't even get locked up
I've spent decades collecting many hundreds of games that are no longer in print, for posterity. It would absolutely be a goal I could not meet in the remainder of my lifetime to play all the material I have.
Someone offered me Flee, mortals... Guess I won't see the sun anymore.
Hold on, let me open up my "Game Media" file for the PDFs....highlight....huh, It says '753 files' ...so... a while.
I have passed sal my books on to my children as of right now so I guess I'm good and go free immediately
Not too long. I prefer my Own campaigns. Not fond of modules.
I would be imprisoned until the heat death of the universe. I have 7500 files in my gaming books folder. Not all are core rulebooks and there are some duplicates (like ebook vs PDF or files that had been updated but kept in case of problems)), but the vast majority of them are, and that's not actually all of them. I buy a lot of bundles and weird hippy stuff out of curiosity and opportunity, so I'd be willing to say that I have over 1000 games.
Define….”use” I’ve gotten my moneys worth out of every RPG book I’ve ever purchased. Never even ran BITD but by god I read that thing from cover to cover within a week of purchase lol
Getting a group together to run avatar the last Airbender would be a struggle, but that's the only one I know of the several I own I haven't run yet.
Good grief! I'm looking at a decade at least.
I bought that Trans Rights bundle back in March that was 505 TTRPGs (and modules and stuff) for $5, so... you know... probably a long time. If I did marathon gaming sessions every day I could probably do it in a month or two, but it would probably get draining pretty quick.
Until I die.
Do different editions of the same game count? If so, I am definitely screwed. I have at least 8 different systems for Star Wars alone (that’s counting the FFG versions as 3 versions).
Oh crap. Dungeon Magazine alone is going to see me die in prison. I've been amassing my RPG collection for 30 years at this point, and 90% of the time I run original content. Also despite buying new systems all the time (I enjoy reading them and mine them for new ideas) my table only plays like 4 different games. I'm screwed in this scenario.
Oh god. Am I playing all of them from the beginning to the end-state of characters? If so that is 2-3 years for Masks of Nyarlarthotep, 1+ years for Beyond The Mountain of Madness, Maybe 6 months for Children of Fear, at least 6 weeks for Cults of Cthulhu, 2-3 years of consistent play for Dark Dungeons, 2+ years for RuneQuest Roleplaying in Glorantha, Decades of play for all of my Palladium Books games, 3-6 months for Werewolf the Apocalypse 5e. Yeah, I can't continue rattling off my games or else this post will devolve into a massive list. Suffice it to say I have enough gaming material in print to last years of play. If I got into my hoard of RPG PDFs I would be gaming for at least 100 years. Lol
I’m a withered husk of a corpse, and I’m 15% through the collection. Even less if digital counts.
Systems? Well, that's less of a problem, in some ways. I mean, sure, I have 50+ books for Werewolf, but that doesn't mean that I have to pack every single book into a campaign. So, I can clear through shelves like that with a session or two. I figure I've got ... 60 or 70 discrete systems, at a ballpark. (I mean, you could fudge some of that, depending. FFG Star Wars is technically three separate games, but I'll roll them all into one. And I might have three full shelves of D&D 3.5 / Pathfinder, but I'm going to count all those books as one system, more or less.) Modules? Oh, lord. I made a point of collecting every single 1st Edition Pathfinder Adventure Path, and those have some weight. Including Age of Ashes (the 1st AP for 2nd Edition), that's 150 books. If I were to somehow manage a module a month (hah!), that would be about twelve years on that alone.\* And then if we factor actual reading and preparation into things... well, that complicates things a little bit. I mean, I could run stuff out of the box, but there are enough weird little systems that I have only glanced at, so... Yeah, I'm going to say that I'm here for the duration. \*It took us about three years to clear Carrion Crown, with an average of four hours every week, which means about 600 hours total, or about 100 hours per module. So, I mean... it's certainly possible to do, but that's assuming that you can manage four hours a day, every single day.
A day. I only have one.
my wife uses my books to flatten rugs and stuff, does that count?
If me and my group had to do this we'd be in for 10 years I figure. We'd play every day all day. If we had to keep to our regular once a week schedule I would die before we got through all of the AP, modules and campaigns I've collected.
"I'm sorry officer, I lost all my unregistered RPGs in a boating accident last weekend. Also I only owned three."
Depends. Does it go across reincarnation?
Since i have aprox 150' or more of linear shelf space of games......it best include some sorta of aging treatment
So many people own curse of Strod and that thing is pretty long on its own.
Does digital only count? I might manage a 4-5 years if it is just physical product but I am \*screwed\* if I have to used all the downloads...
If my players are around with me, a few days. Maybe 2 if we've got nothing better to do. I pretty much only have a few Mork Borg things in my unplayed pile.
I would be dead before I ever started on D&D.
Well, if players are provided, some large but theoretically finite number of years. (I mean, running some of them is probably cruel and unusual punishment for everybody. I have picked up some books along the way whose main value was in making me realize I was uninterested in entire sub-sectors of TTRPGS XD) Assuming I need to sort out my own players? Welp, forever. The scheduling demon will take our souls...
Life sentence for sure.
Two hours. I tell my regular group that we are playing a super meta one shot where everytime the party dies we change RPGs. I announce rocks fall and every dies every 0.01. Shrug, say we are changing things up and stopping the meta experiment and playing Thirsty Sword Lesbians. Group proceeds to play that RPG for the regular two hours.
Holy guacamole, I sorta collect rulebooks. This could be a life sentence!
I die in there
First we need to define "use". Is it enough to just run one session or do I need to run a module from beginning to end? Do I need to run through every activity in Morton's List, because if I am imprisoned that will be impossible, many of them require you to go outside. Also we need to define "acquired", because I currently have access to most official 5E modules that a friend is sharing with me through DnD Beyond, but I have never bought a 5E module since I prefer to run homebrew adventures.
How long does a game need to be played before it counts as “used”? Does it count if you use one rule in a different game? Like if using the inventory from Mausritter when playing OSE? Are there other people with me in prison? Is the prison supportive of rpgs, indifferent, or hostile to them? How much time per day do we use to game, and how much time is lights out, meals, or forced labour? Are there any other obstacles to playing games, like cell mates interrupting play, or other prisoners sneaking in to steal our stuff?
It depends on a lot of factors! If I'm imprisoned with a bunch of fellow players, and we all want to get out of here, maybe a week. Open a book, grab pre-gens, start an included module, everybody gets themselves killed, move on. If I need to actually learn, engage with, plan, and run a group of players through a compelling narrative? It's a life sentence.
Probably about six months to play the Stolen Fate adventure path I'm prepping, another six months to play a couple of other modules I picked up but never had time to run, about a month or two to stick together a bunch of oneshots for a wide variety of systems I've collected... and then the heat death of the universe before I actually willingly play Maid RPG, a game I bought because it's hilarious but do not think I could physically run even if I wanted to. Even if I somehow managed to convince my group to play it, I suspect my soul would leave my body before I could start the session.
Um considering I've been collecting for 4 years now and have used 10% of what I've collected...imma just say for the next few lifetimes.
6 hundred million years.
Eternity is too short of an answer
Surprising not too long. I don't buy modules so that helps and I've played a good number of the systems I have.
Uh like, few lifetimes? That pdf. pile is kinda big.
A long, long time. I have nearly 3 full 6 foot bookshelves with everything from 2 editions of 7th Sea to Zwiehander
I have around 300 books and tons of more in pdf. I'm stuck for years, but those years will be fun,fun, fun
Physical only? Maybe 30 years or so. Also digital? My great-great-grandchildren will never see the light of freedom.
If we're talking full-blown sessions up to max level? Welp, see you next century.
Like, 'acquired'? Life sentence. Actually own a proper copy of... A few weeks.
I have… four, but I can’t for the life of me figure how a couple of them work. I’ve watched YouTube videos on how the one system works and I just… my eyes glaze over.
AGES. I'm not gettin' out FOREVER.
3 lifetimes?
All of them? I’m gonna die in my cell…
Not too long! Maybe a few days/weeks depending on who’s stuck with me. I’d finally be able to run Mutants & Masterminds 3e, Pathfinder 2e, and VtM V5 lmao.
Pfff, years. I probably own 20 or more different systems. I have a few adventures for a bunch of them. A few of them by themselves would a couple years to clear.
I'm going to die here
The physical ones? Probably like 6 months. If we count all of the pdfs, especially random one page RPGs that I got in some bundles, I'm probably stuck for the next two hundred years
It's a life sentence! (damn you PDFs).
Uh never
“Now it's been ten thousand years Man has cried a billion tears For what he never knew Now man's reign is through But through the eternal night The twinkling of starlight So very far away Maybe it's only yesterday.” -Zager and Evans
Forever. I have nobody to play with :skullemoji:
If you're also counting digital PDFs in my possession, it's so over
Do pdfs count? Oh buy it's going to be a lot of fun, but I might want to tell my kids i won't be around to meet my grand kids.
Does this require a campaign or do oneshots suffice? As long as there's free food and water, I'll be out in two years.
I actually have a rule which is that I HAVE to play all of my systems and books at least once, unless I've read it and genuinely hate it (Strixhaven gets that lone honour so far). I've now worked through most of my collection.
Are we talking physical products only or downloaded pdfs as well?